Content creators, such as colorists and cinematographers, perform color grading to alter colors and tones of an image to achieve a desired artistic appearance. However, perception is influenced by a viewer's state of visual adaptation, an adjustment to visual sensory sensitivity.
Inconsistent visual adaptation can lead to undesirable, subjective outcomes during color viewing tasks. For example, when several content creators work independently to produce content, the aggregated content may not appear seamless. Correcting the aggregated content for disparate adaption increases delay and expense in production. As another example, when a content creator adjusts colors for a frame portion, those colors are adapted to a local region and can look unfitting in view of the entire frame.
Inconsistent visual adaptation can lead to undesirable, objective outcomes as well. High visual adaption produces content with high brightness (e.g., a higher average picture level) that unnecessarily increases power consumption. Adaptation levels further can lead to content mistakenly produced at a higher light level, rather than with increased dynamic range.
One standard, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Recommended Practice 166 (SMPTE RP 166), attempts to mitigate inconsistent visual adaptation. SMPTE RP 166 specifies a standard viewing environment, such as color and intensity of light of the ambient environment, for critical color tasks. This standard works reasonably well for legacy reference displays. These displays weakly impact a viewer's adaptation due to relatively small color gamut and luminance. However, for advanced displays with extended luminance, expanded color gamut, and larger size, SMPTE RP 166 alone is inadequate.
Hence, there is a need for techniques for editing visual content by anchoring visual adaptation during color viewing tasks.